Route F
One week starting and ending in Syros.
- Syros
- Mykonos Delos
- Naxos
- Paros Naoussa
- Sifnos Kamares
- Kythnos Loutra
- Syros
Suggested islands
Andros and Tinos
Άνδρος, the most northerly and, after Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades, is a kind of south-easterly continuation of Evvia, from which it is separated by a busy and sometimes stormy channel only 8 nm wide.
In the island’s four ranges of hills, the largest of which is Mount Petalon (997 m), are marble quarries which were already being worked in antiquity. Thanks to its unusual abundance of water Andros – most Cycladic islands are rather barren – has a flourishing agriculture.
Τήνος with its highest peak Mount Tsiknias (713 m), at the east end of the island. The inhabitants live by farming on terraced fields. Characteristic features of the landscape are the Venetian-style tower-like dovecots, of which there are some 1300. There are also numerous windmills.
Paros and Antiparos
Πάρος, lying some 8 km west of Naxos, is occupied by a range of hills of gently rounded contours, rising to 764 m in Mount Profitis Ilias (rewarding climb, with guide; magnificent panoramic views). Three bays cut deep inland – in the west the sheltered Paroikia Bay, with the island’s capital that serves as the main sailing port and as a yacht charter base; in the north the bay which shelters the little town of Naoussa, which in Roman times was the island’s main port for the shipment of Lychnites marble; and in the east the flat Marmara bay. The whole island is covered with a layer of coarse-grained crystalline limestone, in which lie rich beds of pure marble.
The island’s considerable prosperity has depended since ancient times on agriculture, favoured by fertile soil and an abundance of water, and on the working on marble, which is still quarried on a small scale. In recent years the rapid development of the tourist trade has brought changes in the landscape, the island’s economy and its social structure.